ChemistryViews is pleased to learn that the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemisty for 2010 jointly to Professors Ei-ichi Negishi, Richard Heck and Akira Suzuki (above) for their work on palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis.

Negishi and this year's other Laureates, Richard Heck and Akira Suzuki, have retired from active research but their work has become standard tools in labs across the world as catalysis becomes an increasingly important route to complex synthetic targets.

Heck is best known for the palladium catalyzed coupling of an aryl halide to an alkene in the presence of a base, while the Suzuki reaction utilizes Pd(0) to couple an aryl- or vinyl-boronic acid with an aryl- or vinyl-halide. Negishi pioneered the use of organozinc compounds in palladium-based cross couplings, coupling them with aryl, alkyl, allyl or alkenyl halides.

This is the fourth Nobel Prize for catalysis in the last ten years, reflecting the growing importance of this field.

Ei-ichi Negishi is a Wiley published author and has edited or contributed the following Wiley books:

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